If you’re a frugal photographer who’s constantly searching for ways to save some dough when buying gear, you might want to look into the new Los Angeles-based startup company Greentoe. It’s a shopping site that’s trying to turn the e-commerce world on its head by taking pricing power from merchants and putting it into the hands of consumers.
Basically, it’s a site that lets you buy camera gear at prices you want to pay.
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Cameratico is a new “humanized camera recommendation engine” that’s being developed by Brasília, Brazil-based photographer and programmer Fábio Pili. Sick of camera comparison websites that only dealt with specifications, Pili decided to create one that takes into account real world usage experiences.
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If you’ve been jostling with crowds today over Black Friday deals and are heavy laden with shopping bags, take a look at this sweet deal that won’t be any extra hassle: Amazon is currently selling the full boxed version of Adobe Lightroom 4 for just $79! It’s regularly priced at $150, and sometimes dips down to $100, but $79 for one of the most popular image editing programs is quite an attractive offer. No word on how long this pricing will last, but we’re guessing that it’ll go back up after today or the holiday season.
You can also find the complete list of camera- and photo-related Black Friday deals offered by Amazon on this page.
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 [Amazon]
Best Buy has been struggling in recent years as consumers have increasingly looked to the Internet for their gadget shopping needs. It’s quickly gaining a reputation of being a place where people “try before they go home and buy online” (known as “showrooming“) If you’ve been using the store as your personal camera showroom and are in the market for a new camera, you might want to bring your wallet the next time you visit: Best Buy is planning to extend its price match policies to online retailers this holiday season.
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XKCD recently published this humorous comic explaining how you should interpret star ratings online. These are the ratings you come across when browsing online stores (e.g. Amazon) and customer review websites — ratings that supposedly provide an accurate glimpse at how consumers feel about the product. Do they, though?
As the comic shows, the answer is: yes and no.
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Here’s another sign of the changing times: so many camera shoppers are turning to the Internet for deals that some cameras shops are now charging fees for customers who want to test out their cameras. The Daily Telegraph writes,
Camera House Caringbah owner Craig Mackenzie charges a $30 “explanation fee” to customers looking to test out his high-end cameras.”I’ve got to pick the people who won’t screw me over,” Mr Mackenzie said.
“If I pick the wrong one, he’ll waste half an hour of my time and will then ask me to write it all down.”
A survey conducted by the paper of more than 1000 people also revealed that 61% had tried out products in local stores before actually buying them online, and half of those people had done so more than five times.
(via Daily Telegraph via Sydney Morning Herald)
Image credit: Camera Store by Helga’s Lobster Stew
Shopobot is a new shopping tool that helps buyers determine the best price to buy products from various retailers by tracking their price changes across time. Retailers often change the prices of different items often to determine the best price point, which can cause frustration for people who buy a product only to find it $50 cheaper the next day. If you’re looking to buy a camera, lens, or any other piece of gear, you might benefit from doing a quick search on Shopobot to find the price history of that item.
Shopobot (via Reuters)
Thinking of buying a love one a digital photo frame this Christmas? You might want to reconsider. A recent survey of 2,000 people by the British Video Association found that digital photo frames were the most unwelcome gifts, followed by foot spas, blenders and digital organizers.
More than a third of those surveyed said they simply didn’t have time to use the gadgets they had received, while 23 per cent didn’t see the point of some of them. The survey found that 18 per cent of those who rarely used their gadget gift simply didn’t like them, 10 per cent couldn’t be bothered to clean them, while seven per cent had not read the instructions or didn’t know how to use the device. [#]
Have you ever received a digital photo frame that you never ended up using? (I have)
(via Steve’s Digicams)
Image credit: digital photo frame – hanging by m a r c
